USC urban planning podcast hopes to effect change

Some USC students may think that urban planning is boring.

Sam Ellman and Natalie Ikhrata disagree. In fact, they named their new podcast, “Urban Planning is Not Boring.”

“Basic urban planning, it’s so hard to define. Because, as a planner, you can do so many things like transportation planning, you could do food systems planning, mall planning, whatever. But I think it’s just influencing the built environment,” said Sam Ellman, one of the creators of the podcast and a second-year USC student pursuing her masters in urban planning.

The podcast connects the history of planning to the issues we face now, from racist policies and questionable zoning procedures, to discussing “15-minute” cities, an accessible community concept keeping necessities with a 15 minute commute, and America’s daunting suburban sprawl. Ellman said the podcast seeks to empower people to change urban planning policies that impact their communities.

“And policy is, [at] the most basic, just being able to have the power to decide, this route is going to be like 20 feet wide. And it’s going to have an eight foot bike lane and whatever, you have so much power to decide those things,” Ellman continued.

Ellman recommended attending public meetings to get involved in urban planning policy to take power of their local community infrastructure. “The planning commission, any developer, they have to hold public meetings for most projects that are undergoing environmental review, or they have to get some sort of entitlement,” Ellman said. “And so if you go, or you write, or you call and you leave a public comment, they have to consider that legally.”

When considering the role of urban planners, Sam asks: “How are we going to help this community in a way that’s meaningful to them?” In the context of the South Los Angeles region, this means catering urban planning policy to the Black and Latinx population.

USC students can see an example of urban planning in their own turf. The USC Village was a longtime staple to the South Los Angeles community, with affordable grocery stores, a movie theater, and other vendors. Today, the Village serves the students of USC with student housing and restaurants, but neglects the needs and history of the surrounding community.

Jonathan Antonio, a senior majoring in public policy, grew up in South Central Los Angeles, and has seen many changes in the area. Antonio has interacted with USC from a young age.

In both middle school and high school, he participated in the Neighborhood Academic Initiative, taking courses at USC during the week and weekend. Due to the proximity of the Village to the USC campus, he would visit the vendors.

“[The original USC Village] had a Subway, and they had a movie theater and sometimes I’d go with my friends because it was pretty cheap, like $5 or $6. Everything was pretty accessible. It seemed like it was affordable for college students and it was also affordable for the people that lived in the area,” said Antonio.

Those are all gone now, with the newly built USC Village remaining instead, a staple of the campus.

The podcast brings up important questions, not only to planners, but to everyone who lives in a city. It makes urban planning accessible.

Willa Seidenberg, a professor at USC specializing in audio journalism and interim director of the Specialized Journalism Graduate Program, said, “I love the title of this podcast, ‘Urban Planning Is Not Boring’, because the thing about it is, there’s all these things like urban planning that affect our daily lives, and hopefully, they’re gonna do something that really makes people understand why isn’t it boring? Or well, how does it affect me?”

She continued: “If they make it interesting and make it relevant to people, that’s doing a big service to all of us.”

And impacts can be tangible. Seidenberg, talking about her own podcast “Save As: NextGen Heritage Conservation”, recounted a story about a commissioner from L.A.’s department of cultural affairs who listened to her podcast.

“I [met] her because my podcast won some awards…and she said, ‘You know, I was listening to your podcast that you did about Leimert Park. And I heard about this architect and this place that I didn’t know about, and I brought it to the commission. And we’re in the process of landmarking it. I wouldn’t have known about it if I hadn’t heard your podcast,’” Seidenberg said. “And so that’s an example of somebody [who] was engaged with the content, and something happened.”

“Urban Planning is Not Boring” is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Castos. Their Instagram has more information.